Kuppler, however, died before he had an opportunity of exhibiting his instrument to the court. Soon afterwards many other microscopes were sent to Rome, where, however, no one knew how to use the complicated instrument. Galileo not only at once perceived its use, but greatly improved it.[1] He afterwards sent many of these improved instruments to his friends, and before long his microscopes were in as great request as his telescopes.[2] In order to rectify a mistake that has been often repeated, that Galileo was the inventor of this instrument of such vast importance to science, we mention here that he never claimed this merit himself; it was his eulogist, Viviani, who first claimed it for him, and his thoughtless followers have repeated it. Galileo had indeed, as he mentions in his "Il Saggiatore," discovered a method of using the telescope to magnify objects as early as 1610, but it required an over-zealous biographer to claim Galileo as the inventor of the microscope from this. It was, however, he who, in 1624, brought the microscope to a degree of perfection on which for a long time no advance was made.
Urban VIII. heaped favours of all sorts on Galileo before his departure. He promised him a pension for his son,[3] three days afterwards he sent him a splendid picture, then again two medals—one of silver, the other of gold, and quite a
- ↑ Rezzi, pp. 8-10 and 36-40.
- ↑ Op. vi. p. 297; ix. p. 64.
- ↑ Galileo was never married, but he had a son who was legitimised in 1619 by Cosmo II., and two daughters, by Marina Gamba, of Venice. His daughters took the veil in the Convent of S. Matteo, at Arcetri, The mother of his children afterwards married a certain Bartolucci, with whom Galileo subsequently entered into friendly correspondence, which was quite in accordance with the state of morals and manners in Italy at that period. The pension of sixty dollars was granted in 1627, but owing to the religious exercises attached as a condition, Galileo's son did not accept it. It was then transferred to a nephew, but, as he proved unworthy of it, to Galileo himself, with an increase of forty dollars, but with the condition, as it was derived from two ecclesiastical benefices, that he should adopt the tonsure, to which he consented. He drew the pension which thus irregularly accrued to him as long as he lived.
